Milord

[Janek]

Salut!
Pourquoi il y a une forme "vous asseoir à ma table" dans les paroles de chanson de Édith Piaf? Devrait on être "asseyez"? Pardon my french. ;)

[Vedas]

Hello,

you need the full sentence to understand it:

Allez venez!  Milord vous asseoir à ma table (let's come and seat at my table)

- 1 -there is already one verb  which is "venez" so the second one must be at the infinitive (just like in English you want so to do sth)

2- the verb asseoir can be conjugated in two different ways (not all tenses):

je m'assieds / je m'assois (more familliar)

vous asseyez/ vous assoiyez

[George Hunt]

I am not familiar with "assoiyez" .

Is it as accepted as "assoyez"? Not "quebecqois" is it?

[Vedas]

hello,

my mistake! I'm not good at multi-tasking (skype and forums!) assoyez is the correct spelling!

[Sandra]

Hello !

I'm not familiar at all with this form of "asseoir" with an "e"...

I made some researches and found out that this is the historical and correct spelling of the verb "asseoir" (to sit) but since 1990 the Académie Française stopped to consider "assoir" as a wrong spelling.

It seems there is still a huge debate on the different forms, accords and spellings of this verb...

From my personal experience as a native speaker I never heard about this " assoyez" form and even in formal context I'll use "Asseyez-vous s'il vous plait"....

[George Hunt]

I learned my French initially at school and  "asseoir"is what I learned then . 

I think "assoir" would have  lost me marks had I used it in an exam.

"asseyez" is also what I learned  then  and if I had to guess I would think that "assoyez" could be an archaic form.

[Sandra]

Hello !

It's a question of grammar and verbs accord;

In the song she says:

"Allez venez Milord vous asseoir à ma table"

Here "vous asseoir" is in its infinitive form, the sentence's verb is "venez" ("venir" at Impératif)

To respect the song rhythm, she switched the subject and the verb but you must understand the sentence like this :

["Allez" = Cheer expression] Milord (subjetct) venez (verb at Impératif) vous asseoir (Complément d'objet direct) à ma table (Complément d'objet indirect).

If you want to accord "asseoir" instead of "venir" you must change the phrase:

"Allez, Milord (subject) , asseyez vous (verb Impératif) à ma table (Complément d'objet direct)"

hope this helps ! ;)

[Janek]

Thank You very much. ;)
What about je ne suis qu'une fille du port.
I don't understand the "ne" here, it isn't the negation it's not the "né" in the meaning of born either? Why is it included? Am I missing something? It's translated as I'm just a girl from the docks.

[George Hunt]

"que" has the meaning of "only" when used in conjunction with "ne" .

The "ne" goes before the verb and the "que" goes after  in the same way  as "ne.....pas"

there are lots of other similar constructions ("ne....jamais" is the most common  ,meaning "never" but you also have "ne.... plus" ,meaning "no more"and others)

If you want to say "only" without using this "negative" construction you can just use "seulement"

[Janek]

Merci beaucoup ;)

[Janek]

And again, I hope my last question; "Je ne puis trouver d'excuses pour ce manque de respect". Why there's no "pas" after puis ?

[George Hunt]

"pouvoir " is one of very few verbs where the "pas" is not aways  necessary.

"Savoir "is the same. You can say "je ne sais" as well as you can say "je ne sais pas".

They are just quirks in the language ,I think.

I don't quite know if there are any rules which apply  as to when you might omit the "pas"

[Janek]

I see... ;) french language has lots of surprises, indeed... Thank You.